If you open the source code of virtually any HTML file,
you will see there are a LOT of tags. So changing the styles manually
is just not workable. You need to use another software to tag (prepare)
the file. It’s rather easy to do for HTML, and other relatively
common formats like XML and SGML. My personal preference goes to a software
called Rainbow
(freeware). There are other possibilities like +Tools
(also freeware).

The process is rather simple and well explained in both
software documentations, so I won’t overkill it. In Rainbow, (once
installed), you click on “Add”, select the HTML files you
need to prepare, go to the Tools menu, select “Prepare for translation”,
fill out the needed options, and under the tab “Package”,
you select where the tagged files should be created.

Some stuff may look complex, but frankly it’s
a no-brainer, when all you have to do is prepare an HTML file.

Find your files, open the rtf file in Word, and you
are ready to translate.

3. Translating a tagged file:

This depends on your CAT. In Wordfast, start the translation
as usual, with your TM and glossaries, the lock bolt on the door, gaffer
tape across the neighbor’s kid mouth, Mozart playing (or AC/DC –
your call), …,whatever your set-up usually is when you translate.
;-)

Tags in tw4winInternal are considered as placeables.
You can select them in the source segment using “Ctrl + Alt + Left/Right”
and “Ctrl + Alt + Down” will copy it inside the target segment,
at the insertion point. Type your translation in the target and bring
down the tags at the appropriate points in the target sentence.

Use the tags to know how the text will look like and
do not hesitate to refer to the original HTML file, when in doubt. As
explained, before, keep keywords in mind and balance the text to match
the original’s proportions as closely as possible. (Of course, if
the page is not meant for the general public but for Intranet, that becomes
much less important).

Please refer to the “tagged files” section
of your Wordfast’s manual. In summary, you have to make sure that
you do not forget tags (Wordfast has settings to remind you), that you
keep the internal tags in the tw4winInternal and the translatable text
in whatever is the style originally used.

When your translation is done and the file cleaned (meaning
all source segments and segment delimiter have been deleted), you
have a nice …RTF file. If both the source and the target
language do not require Unicode and you do not have special characters
in the file, save it as txt (or copy all the code in Notepad) and change
the extension to “*.html” or “*.htm” (depending on the original).
If you use
a language that requires Unicode (Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Thai,...),
save the file with the appropriate encoding and modify the charset information
in the file header to reflect the new language (i.e.: UTF-8.) See the
HTML links to find out more about encodings and file formats.

If you have respected the tags, the file should look
about right in the browser. However, the translation is seldom the same
size as the original text, and if so, you may have to make a few arrangements
to make it fit nice. If lucky, everything can stay the same.

You are through. I hope these information will help
you tackling HTML files in a professional manner and feel confident with
them. As you can see, there is nothing really hard in HTML files, but
they do require some extra attention too. If it's HTML, it's not just
text.

At times the client wants you to translate the text
with no consideration with the HTML or a potential use on the net. That’s
all right. If so, skip everything and ask him to provide a regular *.doc
file, or open the HTML in word and save it as *.doc.

[Comming soon...need to look for them] Here are some
HTML links that will help you learn more about HTML itself and perhaps
get into some more “geeky” file formats like SGML, XML, PHP,
ASP, …, you name it.